Neverending Covid-19 Coronavirus

[RenegadeMonster]

Reading reports that in many Red states, Texas for example, if you die outside of a hospital you are not tested for COVID-19. Your death is not attributed to COVID-19.

In blue states like NY, while they aren't able to test all general population deaths, they are at least trying to rather than ignoring them.

This is one of the reasons there is accusation of inflated deaths in blue states. And it's BS. The number a deaths in blue states are higher, so they must be inflating them. These idiots don't even take into account population density or factors like testing of deaths out side of hospitals.

 

[Jan]

Gilead reports early positive data in remdesivir studies as COVID-19 drug, though Chinese trial sees no benefit

Gilead Sciences Inc.’s experimental drug remdesivir met the main goal in a closely watched government-funded clinical trial treating hospitalized COVID-19...

www.marketwatch.com

I would not trust this too much, since it mainly is reported by gilead whose company well-being hinges much on remdisivir, which was not particularly succesful against Ebola in humans. Also it's mostly reported in financial websites to hype the companies stock. It is to be seen if something significant shows inlarger controlled trials.

 

[RenegadeMonster]

I would not trust this too much, since it mainly is reported by gilead whose company well-being hinges much on remdisivir, which was not particularly succesful against Ebola in humans. Also it's mostly reported in financial websites to hype the companies stock. It is to be seen if something significant shows inlarger controlled trials.

Especially when there are some other studies done that show it did not help.

For example:

April 29, 2020 coronavirus news

The global coronavirus pandemic has brought countries around the world to a standstill. Here's the latest updates on worldwide Covid-19 cases, deaths, government responses, and more.

www.cnn.com

 

[Tyr]

So, you may have seen on my status, my furlough ended today. Thank Gods! I had been keeping busy with other client stuff while on furlough to ensure I didn’t have to dip into my savings too much. So party at my place tonight.

But, the future is still uncertain so I’m still going to keep grinding through all of this and hopefully come out better after everything.

My thoughts and positive energy still go out to all of you affected, whether furloughed, laid off, or otherwise. Big love

 

[Jan]

It can be very difficult to tell.

I probably shouldn't get into specifics, but I've been tangentially involved with development of drugs that achieve breakthrough therapy status from FDA on the strength of early phase trial results, only to find in later phase confirmatory trials that no actual patient benefit exists. Aside from being a crushing business disappointment, as well as a massive letdown to patients who need medicines that work, it's also bewildering because the science in both cases appeared sound, and yet the conclusions ended up being wildly different. As far as I know, no cause for the discrepancy in results has ever been detected.

Although i understand it, i dont think for the scientific progress the close media coverage of every little step towards a covid-19 / corona remedy/ vaccine is not the best. Every other day there is a media article about a Breakthrough here and how it can come about faster some even making it appear that the long timesit normally takes to get a vaccine to the market are merely bureauratic. There are many steps involved in clinical trials to help make these things safe. Especially in the case of a vaccine we have to keep in mind that tgis is something we would administer to billions of healthy people world wide. A small percentage of adverary effects could mean a lot of cases. I am scared that reports about promising first results combined with the hope that once we have vaccine we can go back to normal will cause political pressure to shortcut the process and could lead to catastrophic effects.

 

[RenegadeMonster]

MSN

www.msn.com

Trump said today that federal social distancing guidelines will be fading out to allow for states to open back up.

That is worrisome because several states that should have had social distancing guidelines earlier did not because it was not the federal governments guidance at the time. I'm worried that as they fade they are going to mirror.

Florida, I'm looking at you.

 

[RenegadeMonster]

Laid-off workers may have to give up unemployment benefits as states reopen

As businesses across the nation slowly begin to reopen, many laid-off workers face a difficult decision: Do they feel it's safe enough to return to their jobs?

www.cnn.com

Several states, including Iowa and Texas, are warning residents who are called back that they may be cut off from unemployment benefits -- including the $600 bump authorized by Congress in March -- if they refuse to return.

If a worker does not feel it's save to return to work, especially if they have risk factors it's looking like to bad. When the state reopens and if you are called back to work we are cutting you off from unemployment.

These laws are coming out because in many cases, low wage workers make more on unemployment than they do at their actual job. So their logic is what incentive do they have to return to work if they make more staying at home.

Not sure if they are more concerned about that they might be able to make more money on unemployment than their job, or getting the economy going faster so corporations and the wealthy can resume making their dough.

 

[Turbo]

I would not trust this too much, since it mainly is reported by gilead whose company well-being hinges much on remdisivir, which was not particularly succesful against Ebola in humans. Also it's mostly reported in financial websites to hype the companies stock. It is to be seen if something significant shows inlarger controlled trials.

Maybe. They are lots of unknowns still for sure. You always have to wait until all the results are in.

There was also a smaller controlled trial in China that showed no effect. So who knows. It's possible the effect is small (which is what the US study seems to show if I understand correctly), so you need more N's to see an effect. That would not be great, but it's better than nothing.

Also, be careful about saying that because a medicine doesn't work for one purpose, it will be failure for everything. There's just no way to know without testing it (think of this failed cardovascular drug sildenafil because it had this weird side-effect....).

 

[Jan]

Completely agree. The concept of speed is extremely relative when it comes to this sort of work. That Oxford vaccine candidate article from earlier this week sounds super exciting based on the headline until you see they haven't even achieved first human dose yet. Ef

Had the same feeling reading the article. They have good results in six apes, but already pressuring regulatory instances by saying they could have a vaccine uf the process is streamlined.

 

[Turbo]

Had the same feeling reading the article. They have good results in six apes, but already pressuring regulatory instances by saying they could have a vaccine uf the process is streamlined.

You can streamline it even more by vaccinating humans and then directly challenging them with virus....

 

[Turbo]

I mean, are IRBs even necessary?

Wasn't Fox pushing the idea? They could serve as the review board. They seem to know what they are talking about.

 

[Captainfog]

So....change in recording process for the U.K.? That is a lot of "new deaths" in one day...

View attachment 43752

Yes, they've started to include care home deaths. Prior to this the government figures were only those who died in a hospital. The Financial Times did a deep dive on all the numbers recently and concluded that the likely true number of deaths in the UK is over 40K it's just that we're not getting everything recorded and/or is being recorded at different speeds. The government for a long time were happy not to caveat the figures they were talking about in their press briefings. It's been an absolute shambles and tbh only Trump seems to be handling everything worse.

Did you read how when they announced the huge amount of PPE they had purchased they were counting each individual glove as a separate item to make the numbers look bigger? haha

 

[LeeVing]

I got floated to the Covid unit to be their unit clerk/tele tech on Monday night.

They are still busy, as all their patients are Covid positive or being "ruled-out" - meaning a test is pending, they are still treated like they are positive.

Covid cases are lessening, but still coming in at about 10-15 per day. They have about 20-25 at a time now, but there is an ebb and flow happening, so it seems like we are plateauing and not in a decline yet.

Being the telemetry tech I wasn't watching their heart rhythms as much as there Oxygen....and that was a bit different for me.

The hardest job there is the CNA that has to be a 1:1 staff with a dementia patient that doesn't stay in bed. They have to sit there all gowned up, mask, goggles, gloves making sure this woman doesn't fall jumping out of bed.

 

[LeeVing]

 

[Ed Selley]

Extremely encouraging if true;

 

[Captainfog]

They've always expected immunity to last somewhere around a year (depending on your initial viral load) because that's what they think happens with SARS. They can't be sure yet though, obviously. The worry for me is people who have a very mild dose or display no symptoms at all have been shown to have lung damage which will put them at a disadvantage if they get exposed again in the future. We're also not sure how long immunity will last for people who were only mildly effected. Given all this uncertainty a cautious approach is surely warranted.

 

[RenegadeMonster]

More than half of the States will either have let the stay at home order expire or have allowed businesses to open by some capacity by the end of this week.

Outside of Alaska and Hawaii, no state has met the 14 days of consecutive decline of new cases recommendation by the Trump Administration.

Trump is allowing the federal guidelines for social distancing and staying at home to expire today. This is because quote, "Some states are baking them into their reopening orders and decisions".

 

[ranbalam]

All construction in Michigan reopens on May 7th, (it had been just essential/medical related projects since March) so I think I'm going back to work Monday, my boss said he'd let me know tomorrow. I've been home working and paid 100% and am truly grateful for the company doing that for me. While I'm ready to see people and get back into a daily routine again, I'm still just a bit reluctant.

Also...unrelated to ^ but saw the food convo a few days ago:
I have IBS and I have to say, I have felt pretty great through this. I've been cooking almost every day, and sure enough the one day we did bar carry out, I felt like crap later that night. I had already eliminated fried foods years ago but clearly there's something else about eating out at certain places that doesn't work for me. Do they dunk everything in a vat of butter? Controlling all my own ingredients is key for me for sure.

 

[wokeupnew]

All construction in Michigan reopens on May 7th, (it had been just essential/medical related projects since March) so I think I'm going back to work Monday, my boss said he'd let me know tomorrow. I've been home working and paid 100% and am truly grateful for the company doing that for me. While I'm ready to see people and get back into a daily routine again, I'm still just a bit reluctant.

Also...unrelated to ^ but saw the food convo a few days ago:
I have IBS and I have to say, I have felt pretty great through this. I've been cooking almost every day, and sure enough the one day we did bar carry out, I felt like crap later that night. I had already eliminated fried foods years ago but clearly there's something else about eating out at certain places that doesn't work for me. Do they dunk everything in a vat of butter? Controlling all my own ingredients is key for me for sure.

Are you able to do all of your job duties form home? because companies who want to get their offices back together when they're really not needed are misguided. My job will eventually ask people back but I plan on putting that off as long as I can.

Also, I eat mostly vegetarian but whenever I have takeout food with meat in it, even if it's healthier take out I always feel like crap. I think our diets are used to certain foods and when you come across something foreign it wants to flush it out, pun intended.

 

[debianlinux]

All construction in Michigan reopens on May 7th, (it had been just essential/medical related projects since March) so I think I'm going back to work Monday, my boss said he'd let me know tomorrow. I've been home working and paid 100% and am truly grateful for the company doing that for me. While I'm ready to see people and get back into a daily routine again, I'm still just a bit reluctant.

Also...unrelated to ^ but saw the food convo a few days ago:
I have IBS and I have to say, I have felt pretty great through this. I've been cooking almost every day, and sure enough the one day we did bar carry out, I felt like crap later that night. I had already eliminated fried foods years ago but clearly there's something else about eating out at certain places that doesn't work for me. Do they dunk everything in a vat of butter? Controlling all my own ingredients is key for me for sure.

Possibly the added sodium and MSG. Most restaurant food is very heavily sodium laden.

Our construction firm is headquartered in Lansing, and we’ve been paying those who are not allowed to work. I think it is super cool mainly because if it were me I would be immensely grateful as well. That said, I’d love for them to get back to work (safely) as we are essentially subsidizing them with our bonuses this year.